SB 284 Summary

• Allows schools to be up to four days short of required instructional days in the 2013-2014 school year without losing state funding if closures were due to qualifying calamities and the district first invoked its contingency plan.

• Permits school districts, STEM schools, and chartered nonpublic schools to increase length of other school days in half-hour increments to make up hours or days lost to closures or evacuations from qualifying calamities, including bomb threats.

• Authorizes graduating twelfth-grade students to be excused from attendance for days added after their graduation ceremony to make up calamity day closures, without violating attendance requirements.

• Allows online lessons and paper "blizzard bags" to be used as makeup work for calamity days, with the Department of Education accepting applications at any time after August 1, 2013 for the 2013-2014 school year.

• Requires state assessment scores for grades three through eight to be returned by June 16, 2014 (grade 3) and June 30, 2014 (grades 4-8); declares the act an emergency measure effective immediately.